Hi all, long rambly post sorry!
DS is now just over 4 weeks, we had a rough start to BF where my nipples ended up bruised and bleeding so we combination fed where I BF when I could stand the pain and then gave formula feeds when I couldn't face it. At 5 days he was weighed and was 8.8% down on birthweight so I was advised to top up with formula (at this stage the boobs had healed enough that I was doing this anyway and was pumping too). The midwife put the fear of God into me and I felt like she was criticising rather than supporting tbh. At our next weigh in he had lost even more and we were sat just under the 10% line, I can't remember what day it was but it was really quite traumatic, she was here for 2.5 hours and then decided to send us to hospital as she felt his respiratory rate was high and his body temp was low (using one of our sh%££y home thermometers from amazon), spent pretty much the whole appointment in tears and once the Pediatrician had seen us, they confirmed he was totally fine and nothing at all wrong with him. He was weighed again a few days later and had put some on and was at about 8% down, the last weigh in was a week ago on Friday when he was exactly 3 weeks and he was back to birthweight. The fear of God midwife said she thought it was a supply issue on the BF front and so he was put on 70ml top ups. We saw a BF specialist at the hospital at about 2.5 weeks who said it wasn't a supply issue but to continue with top ups until he'd reached birth weight- we were supposed to have another catch up at 3.5 weeks but I had to cancel as still not able to drive. Once he had reached birth weight we were discharged by MW and the advice was that we could start reducing top ups. So far over a week later, I am just about feeling confident enough to shift him down to 50ml from 60. As for BF, he is given both boobs first, and formula is always last. He has never not drunk all of the formula but I have noticed that he seems to throw up a lot, probably the vast majority of the formula that he's had. My confidence has been well and truly knocked and I feel like there's still a supply issue despite reassurances. He usually falls asleep at the breast and is generally feeding for 15-20mins each side, the first 10 mins is active sucking and swallowing frequently that tends to tail off to infrequent sucking & swallowing. Once he has had both and his formula he seems to continue displaying hunger cues, usually sucking the air or a finger if there is one placed near him, in the day I struggle to settle him after feeds, at night he goes straight down. I am not feeding on demand and I would say he's roughly 2-3 hours in the day occasionally 1 but will go 4-5 at night. In the day I always try to express/pump each side after feeding, I rarely do at night (I'll be frank, I just want to get back to sleep ASAP!). He hasn't been weighed since discharge, we've tried at home but the scales were v unreliable. What I'm concerned about is the hunger cues, I've started using a dummy which seems to work really well at settling him in the day, I assume if he was genuinely still hungry, he would spit it out? He has plenty of wet nappies but will occasionally have a few days of 1 dirty, followed by a sh%tstorm day of 4+. I'm so terrified of him not getting enough but when I was feeding every time he showed hunger signs, he would lose interest in feeding quite quickly or just sort of latch and half feed very lazily. I'm desperate to get off of the top ups altogether but I just feel like my body isn't doing what it should in the milk production department. My mum and SIL feel I should just drop the top ups altogether as he will let me know when he is really hungry. I'm worried the dummy has confused things but it seems to work and I wonder if he just likes comfort sucking? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, my MH has definitely been better!